Alka-seltzer Maker Prevails Over Longwood Man

March 25, 2005|By Rene Stutzman, Sentinel Staff Writer

SANFORD -- A jury rejected on Thursday the claim of a Longwood man who had accused Bayer Corp. of causing his stroke by failing to warn customers about a potentially dangerous chemical in its Alka-Seltzer Plus tablets.

Norman Svoboda, 58, was seeking more than $2 million from the drug giant.

Svoboda suffered a stroke on Aug. 21, 1998, nine hours after taking two tablets of Alka-Seltzer Plus, he testified.

He blamed his stroke on phenylpropanolamine, also known as PPA, a decongestant in Alka-Seltzer Plus.

Bayer pulled Alka-Seltzer Plus from store shelves in 2000 under pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which had concluded that PPA increased the risk of stroke.

Since then, more than 1,000 stroke victims have sued Bayer.

Svoboda's was the third suit to go to trial. The first was in El Paso, Texas, where a jury awarded a trucker $400,000. In a trial in February, an Ogden, Utah, jury sided with Bayer.

Svoboda's trial was a two-week affair that pitted his stroke experts against Bayer's.

Dr. Kevin Kiwak, a neurosurgeon from West Hartford, Conn., testified for Svoboda, saying that Alka-Seltzer Plus caused a blood clot to form in Svoboda's brain, triggering the stroke.

It left the former insurance adjuster unable to walk or talk for months.

Svoboda now lives alone, but only after months of rehabilitation and care in an adult-living facility.

When he testified March 15, Svoboda's answers were slow and deliberate. The first time he tried to say "Alka-Seltzer Plus," the words were unintelligible.

Bayer's lawyers called Svoboda's stroke a tragedy but insisted their product had nothing to do with it.

Don Scott, a Bayer attorney from Denver, said there was no evidence that Alka-Seltzer Plus caused Svoboda's blood pressure to spike, something that might have triggered a stroke, or caused a blood vessel to constrict, another possible cause.

"They just didn't happen here," he told jurors Thursday.

Scott also suggested that Svoboda had lied about taking Alka-Seltzer Plus that day, a defense the company has used against other plaintiffs.

Also named and cleared in the lawsuit was Eckerd Corp. of Florida Inc., the retailer that sold the medicine to Svoboda.

Bayer has since reformulated Alka-Seltzer Plus so that it no longer includes PPA.